New Leader Onboarding Plan

Guide to Your Onboarding / 2016

New Leader Onboarding Plan

Accelerating the Success of New Leaders at Penn Medicine

New Leader / (Name)
Title
Entity
Date of Hire
Hiring Manager

This guide provides instructions on how to build an Onboarding plan to accelerate the transition into your leadership role. Use this guide when filling out your Onboarding template.

What is Onboarding?

Onboarding is a systematic approach designed to accelerate a new leader’s transition into his/her role at Penn Medicine. To be successful, leaders must quickly establish their credibility, build relationships and get an understanding of both business operations and the organization’s culture. A new leader’s Onboarding plan provides a roadmap to meet these objectives and jumpstart his/her effectiveness as quickly as possible.

TIP! Use the Onboarding tool as a guide for your conversations with your manager during your first 90 days.

Key Roles in Onboarding

·  Hiring Manager: Your manager is critical element to your success as a new leader. He/she plays a primary role in developing the Onboarding plan, giving directions in implementing the plan and providing ongoing coaching and support.

·  Peer Mentor: This is someone assigned as a “go to” resource for you. A peer mentor provides insight and advice on the organizational, department and team culture, as needed. They serve as a resource, a helping hand and a sounding board.

·  Human Resources Partner: Provides oversight to the Onboarding process and ensures the new leader receives ongoing guidance and support from appropriate HR team members. Support could include HR related matters, e.g., performance management, employee engagement, employee relations and policy interpretation.

Establishing Goals for the First 90 Days

There are three key goals within each new leader’s Onboarding plan. Put these priorities at the forefront of your Onboarding to facilitate a smooth integration into your role and accelerate business performance.

Onboarding Plan

The Onboarding plan establishes the priorities and key areas of focus in the first 90 days. Below are recommended actions to accelerate your assimilation. Build a solid plan so you have a straight path forward to learning the business, building relationships and getting a couple of quick wins in alignment with your team’s priorities. Ultimately, you are responsible for plan execution and leveraging key team members who will serve as valuable resources.

Learn the Business / ·  Define your learning agenda and key priorities. Establish a set of guiding questions to use; this will help as you learn more about the organization. Possible questions include:
o  What are the biggest challenges Penn Medicine is facing or will face in the near future?
o  What are the most promising opportunities for growth?
o  If you were me, what would you focus on?
o  What are the traits of a successful leader at Penn Medicine?
·  Understand the goals of the department/team and measures to which you’re held accountable.
·  Learn both hard information (e.g., data, finances, etc.) and soft information (e.g., strategy, capabilities, culture) during your transition.
·  Assess the business environment and where your role fits. Are you starting, fixing, realigning, or sustaining the services from your team or department?
Build Relationships / ·  Identify key players and build strategic relationships between your department and others.
·  Create coalitions that will help your achieve your goals in this new role.
·  Determine who are your key stakeholders and the influence they have within the organization.
·  Establish goals, incentives and performance measures that will propel your team in the desired direction.
·  Figure out the motivators and conditions for success within your team.
Execute Quick Wins / ·  Identify promising opportunities and focus on translating them into wins – remember don’t take on too much, too fast.
·  Focus your energy on securing early wins that align with the department goals as defined by your manager and based on your assessment of the business environment.
·  Build personal credibility; your earliest actions will have a significant influence on how you’re perceived.
·  Secure early wins to leverage your energy and expand your scope to set long-term goals.

[1]

Leadership Curriculum

Penn Medicine is committed to providing you with opportunities to learn the business. Penn Medicine Academy offers leadership development classes in the four key areas of people, service, quality, and finance. The following represents the learning elements for newly hired leaders.

Course Name / Description
Manager Fundamentals
(optional) / This one day course provides foundational tools required to be an effective manager and to ensure optimal performance. Manager Fundamentals introduces language, conceptual framework and tools that allow you to:
·  Position yourself for immediate success as a manager
·  Define performance expectations
·  Ensure performance through giving feedback and active listening
·  Manage performance gaps
·  Motivate different generations in the workplace
Focus on People* / This course begins with an executive overview of Penn Medicine’s people strategy, the importance of employee engagement and the value of our human capital. Participants receive the results of their Strengths Based Leadership assessment and participate in exercises designed to increase the manager’s awareness of their own individual strengths and strategies to leverage those strengths in creating the conditions of engagement.
Focus on Performance Management* / This course focuses on learning the foundational practices of good performance management, such as ongoing feedback and discussion, setting performance goals and standards, and assessing an individual’s specific performance barriers. Simulation learning is used with actors from the Perelman School of Medicine Standardized Participant program playing the role of employees in one-on-one structured experiences, with participants serving in the role of the manager. These scenarios are fully debriefed in person as well as videotaped to be viewed privately after the class through a password protected process.
Focus on Financial Performance* / This course begins with an executive overview of Penn Medicine’s strategy in financial performance, with a focus on how and why Penn Medicine generates revenue and explores the current state of the healthcare industry. Participants learn their stewardship responsibilities in managing to financial performance metrics, reading key reports, and how to manage their budget and develop a sound budget for the future.
Focus on Quality, Performance Improvement, and Innovation* / This course begins with an executive overview of Penn Medicine’s quality and safety strategy, with particular focus on the Blueprint for Quality. Participants then learn about a manager’s role in leading change and continuous improvement.Participants will learn about Penn Medicine’s improvement methodology and a toolkit for continuous improvement, including understanding of techniques such as the 5 whys/lean tools, root cause analysis, process mapping, run charts/control charts, cause and effect diagrams and spaghetti diagrams.
Focus on Service* / This course begins with an executive overview of Penn Medicine’s service strategy and highlights current patient experience initiatives. Participants then learn the key metrics and best leadership practices for maximizing the patient experience. Through case studies and in class simulations, participants develop a five point plan for leading service excellence in their department that is shared with their executive team.

*Upon hire you were enrolled in the mandatory leadership curriculum. You can find the dates and times of these courses listed under “My Learning Plan” in Knowledge Link.

Additional Resources

Here are some suggested reading materials that help you hit the ground running! Ask your manager what other resources they recommend would be relevant to your role and add to this list.

·  Watkins, Michael. The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. 2013.

·  Click here for a summary of “Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels: The First 90 Days.” Soundview Executive Book Summaries, Watkins, Michael. Summary.com. Vol. 26, No. 4 (2 parts) Part 2, April 2004. http://www.papensouth.org/PDF/The_First_90_Days.pdf

[1] Derived from Watkins, Michael. The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter.